Little Russia, sometimes Little Rus’ (Russian: Малая Русь or Малороссия; Ukrainian: Мала Русь or Rus' Minor), is a historical political and geographical term in the Russian language referring to most of the territory of modern-day Ukraine before the twentieth century. Accordingly, derivatives such as "Little Russian" (Russian: малорyсский) were commonly applied to the people, language, and culture of the area. Prior to the revolutionary events of 1917 a large part the region's elite population were followers of Little Russian identity which competed with the local Ukrainian identity. After the collapse of the Russian Empire, and with the amalgamation of Ukrainian territories into one administrative unit the word was phased out of circulation and when used took on a derogatory connotation denoting those Ukrainians with little or no national consciousness. The term retains currency among Russian monarchists and nationalists who deny that Ukraine and Ukrainians are distinct from Russia and Russians. Because Ukraine and its people have undergone the process of nation-building over the last seven hundred years, Little Russia, even in the historic context, can only loosely be considered an equivalent for the word Ukraine. By the late 1980s, the term had become an archaic one, and its anachronistic usage was considered strongly offensive by Ukrainian nationalists.

40 Vasily Zhukovsky agreed that one need not visit Malorossia to experience the
wonderful summer evenings that Shalikov describes: “such beautiful evenings!”
he mocks, “[...] they are beautiful also here, in Moscow.”41 If Zhukovsky shared ...

Thus, at the height ofAleksandr II's civic integration policies, the Polish uprising of
1 863—4 as well as the promotion of a separate Ukrainian identity by
intellectuals from Malorossia triggered the beginning of a more consistent cultural
...

On 18 November 1759, after Bortniansky had left home, the governor of Malorossia, hetman Razumovsky, decreed that 'the homes of underage court
musicians in Kiev and Malorossia, where their fathers, mothers, brothers and
sisters still ...

positive measure for the Malorossia region of moving them from the rural areas to
the towns since, according to our second point, this would save from ruin more
than two million rural residents who were enslaved to the Jews and whom the ...